When I was thirteen, my aunt was looking for another private school to send my sister and me to. She sent us to a psychiatrist who specialized in interviewing kids and recommending private schools for them. The psychiatrist recommended The Delphian School in Sheridan, Oregon for a summer program.

On March 16, 1995, my aunt, her husband, my sister and I drove down to Sheridan. The next day, we drove up to the school on top of the hill.

Without making this into too long of a story, we were VERY IMPRESSED with the school. I was particularly impressed with the eliteness of it. In the reception area, there were pictures of all the graduates of '94 and their success stories. We were given a tour of the school by a student dressed impeccably in a suit (it was Friday, dress-up day). My aunt and uncle told him, "You're a perfect example of the kind of product this school produces."

Before visiting the school, I had been reluctant about attending a summer program anywhere. But after visiting Delphi, I was sold on the idea of going there for high school. My aunt was really excited about me going there as well.

My aunt and I weren't Scientologists, but apparently, my mom's side of the family had had a Scientology history. My grandmother had been a Scientologist, and my mom had been interested in it for awhile. I had even taken the children's comm course at the Seattle Org at age 11 in 1992.

Anyway, Delphi had rekindled my aunt's interest in Scientology. For the last six years, I had been seeing a counselor every week. Being thirteen years old, I was approaching an age where I was having more problems than I had had as a younger kid. My aunt got in contact with a Scientology friend of hers who was a field auditor and was interested in having me get some auditing instead of seeing the counselor. The field auditor told me about Scientology and about auditing, and I was interested in it. However, after receiving the self-analysis auditing, I found it really BORING and I didn't want to continue with it.

I attended Delphi in the summer of 1995 and returned for the fall. I felt really honored and privileged to be going there and I wanted to graduate from there.

However, life was stressful for me there. As a school, it was a much bigger environment than what I had been used to (up until this time, I had only gone to tiny private schools with 12-50 kids). At fourteen years old, I was extremely self-conscious. Also, I wasn't the most focused student. I fell behind target and wound up in Ethics.

I began contemplating suicide. Now, before Delphi, I had once originated having suicidal thoughts, but I was just being over dramatic. I think I was still that way during this instance of suicidal contemplation. Anyway, while in Ethics, the EO told me to write up all my O/W's. I wrote up every little thing I could think of that had happened in my lifetime. I even mentioned my suicide thoughts.

After the Ethics Officers read my O/W's, they sent me back home to Seattle the next day. I was extremely heart broken over having been expelled from Delphi, but I was determined to return.

It was then that I decided to take Scientology more seriously. We got in contact with our local Seattle Org. I did my Basic Study Manual, Personal Values & Integrity, and Overcoming Ups and Downs in Life. After finishing the latter, I was informed that my grandmother was a declared suppressive person because she was a squirrel. I was told that if I wanted auditing, I would have to disconnect from her, and I might even have to disconnect from my mother because she lived next door to my grandmother.

Now, of course, I was not willing to do this. But... the ED told me that if my mother moved away from my grandmother, I wouldn't have to disconnect from my mother. At the time, there was a lady mooching off my Dad living in the house with him, and my aunt and I didn't like her. My aunt also had an apartment downstairs at my Dad's house. My aunt and I decided to use this disconnection policy to our advantage... my mom would move away from my grandmother into my aunt's apartment in my Dad's house. We did this to irritate the lady living with my Dad.

I didn't have a bad relationship with my grandmother. My aunt didn't like her because my grandmother had been married to a man who sexually abused all her daughters, including my aunt and my mom. My grandmother and this pedophile had been Scientologists, and this is why my aunt hadn't liked Scientology before. But... since my grandmother was a declared SP by the Church, it made my aunt feel a lot better about Scientology. I didn't have a problem with my grandmother because my mom had a good relationship with her despite the abusive childhood she had endured. My grandmother was thrilled that I would be getting auditing, so she wrote in her disconnection letter to the Seattle Org, "I am willing to disconnect from him if that's what it takes for him to get auditing." Plus, I was told that I could still see her at family functions and holidays as long as I used good roads, fair weather (Although later, in 1998, my aunt and I were told by ASHO that we couldn't have any communication with my grandmother whatsoever).

Anyway, I got started on my auditing. It was boring for the most part, all those repetitive processes, the questions being asked over and over again. I basically learned the routine, "I need to think up a cognition in order to move on to the next process." Did auditing help me? All I knew was that it was supposed to be helping me, so I must have been benefitting from it.

I did my Purif and my therapeutic TRs, and then I got started on my Student Hat. i also did my Objectives and my ARC Straightwire and my Grade 0. That summer in 1996 was a pretty awesome summer for me. I think my overall level of happiness and self-esteem really improved when I first got into Scientology. At the end of the summer, my Mom ended up moving back next door to my grandmother. The ED at the Seattle Org said that was fine.

Finally, I visited Delphi in October of 1996 for an interview to let them know how I was doing. They agreed to let me return in January on a provisional program. And when I returned, things were so much better. I was a much more motivated, focused student, I joined the choir, I was in the Spring musical, I even finished writing a novel. And I finished my Form 6 Entry ahead of target! I think the age of 15 was the happiest of my teen years.

Next year, unfortunately, I lost my motivation. I fell back into my old habits of falling behind target and falsely attesting to having made my reading targets. I don't know why this happened, maybe because I got distracted by all the Piers Anthony books that weren't on the reading program, maybe it's because I had a lot more responsibilities on Form 6 that I hadn't had on the Entry program. Basically, age 16 at Delphi, from 1997-1998, was a very unproductive and depressing year for me.

At the beginning of the 1998/99 school year, when I was 17, past my target date and nowhere near close to finishing Form 6, I was taken to meet with the Dean, and she told me because I had been slacking off in my studies and falling behind target, I was going to be put on Academic Probation, and if I didn't show improvement, I would be removed from Delphi's graduation program.

Now, I was under a lot of stress here. I was scared for my future. Finally the Ethics Officer talked with me about my purposes in life, and we agreed that graduating Delphi probably wasn't a valid purpose for me (since I was only there for the status, for the glory of graduating from from Delphi, for the three fire alarm chimes ringing for me and everybody screaming and clapping for me). I decided that I would drop off of the graduation program and go onto a "special" program and that this would be my last year at Delphi.

During my last year at Delphi, I learned from my Mom that my grandmother was going to Barstow, CA to work on her "squirrel OT VIII". In my Elements of Style course, I wrote an autobiography and gave lots of details about my family. I joked with my supervisor about my Grandmother, saying, "Yeah, she's pretty weird, and to this day, she is working on her squirrel OT VIII!" My supervisor told me that I needed to write a KR on that and give it to him so he could give it to OSA. And that's what I did.

This KR on my grandmother created a lot of problems. My aunt was kicked off of the Seattle Org's building committee. She was really upset about that. There was also some bogus report about my Mom going to the Portland Org to buy cans for my grandmother's e-meter. While all this was going on, my Mom started going on the Internet and reading "entheta" about the Church.

In August of 1999, (I was finished with Delphi by this point) we flew down to LA to get services at ASHO. We thought we were going to be getting audited up our Bridge. Instead, we found out that we were getting Sec Checked because my grandmother was squirreling, even though we were disconnected from her. My aunt was really upset because the Sec Check cost thousands of dollars. Her attitude was, "If you want to investigate me, fine, but why do I have to pay for it?"

Anyway, we got our sec checks. Going down to the MAA's office afterwards was really awful. The C/S had written up everything that had come up, including sexual stuff. The whole experience was really upsetting. Afterwards, the C/S gave me a written order to write up all the times I had nattered about Scientology, Scientologists, the tech, etc. I was fed up, so I wrote, "I've nattered lots of times, but I don't feel like writing up each and every individual time."

I ended up moving down to LA in September of 1999 to go to acting school, live at the CC and get services at ASHO. I started my PTS/SP course at ASHO. In December, I caught the flu. And what did CC do? They kicked me out and sent me to live at the Ramada Hotel on Vermont near ASHO.

I went home to Seattle for Christmas, but when I returned to LA, there were problems. I still couldn't stay at the CC, and I was pulled off course and down into Ethics. The MAA told me that the Senior Director of Inspection and Reports wanted me to do lower conditions for "having spread entheta about Scientology." I didn't know what he was talking about, but then he showed me that thing where I had written, "I've nattered lots of times, but I don't feel like writing up each and every individual time." Apparently, I had to do lower conditions for this. Also, I was told that because my Mom was living next door to my grandmother, I would have to disconnect from her if she didn't disconnect from my grandmother.

I went home to Seattle for a week in January of 2000. My aunt and I tried to talk my Mom into disconnecting from my grandmother, but my Mom refused. When I returned to LA, unsuccessful in my attempts to "handle" my mother, and wanting to get out of ethics and back on course, I wrote my mother a disconnection letter. My aunt disconnected from my mother as well.

I did my lower conditions. I did 70 hours of amends that included mopping, vaccuuming, dusting and filing at ASHO and shoveling rubble at HELP.

After I was done with my ethics cycle and back on course, I still wasn't allowed to stay at the CC. My aunt came down to visit me, and she learned the REAL reason why I wasn't allowed to stay at the Manor. A report had been circulating that I had slit my wrists years ago (not true), and therefore, because of my past suicidal thoughts, I was too much of a security risk. My aunt got really sick with the flu when she found this out (and she rarely gets sick).

Anyway, because I wasn't allowed to live at the CC, and because I didn't like living at the Ramada Hotel, I ended up moving back to Seattle. I decided I'd finish my PTS/SP course at the Seattle Org, and then hopefully, the CC would let me stay at the Manor Hotel once I was finished with my PTS/SP course.

Life was harder back at home. I felt like a total failure because I had dropped out of Delphi, and I felt like I was failing at my acting endeavors because I was back in Seattle. I had no clue what to do with my life. I tried community college. I took my clock hours to get my real estate license. And also, I was still disconnected from my mother, and I didn't like that. This put a strain on my relationship with my sister as well.

One night in late November, early December of 2000, I got really depressed. I had dropped out of community college, I had failed my real estate license exam three times, and I felt like an utter failure. I felt like auditing was the only thing that could help me. And I was upset over the strained relationship with my sister and being disconnected from my mother. I was angry that my mother and sister weren't being supportive of my efforts to get better through Scientology.

I found an aspirin bottle and finished it off. There were about 32 pills. I was in a crazy state of mind that night. I was sure that this would be how my life would end, and I would also make a point to my family. But after I took the pills, I decided that I wasn't ready to die yet. I told my sister what I had done, she woke up our Dad, and he drove me to the emergency room.

I had to get my stomach pumped. It was a very disgusting experience. Afterwards, I was taken to the psychiatric ward to be reviewed by a psychiatrist before I could be discharged from the hospital.

The ED at the Seattle Org told me that because I had made a suicide attempt, I was now a security risk and could not do services at the Seattle Org. I could only do extension courses, and once I could show that I was stable, I could petition to get services again. I also had to sign a document saying that "the Church of Scientology was in no way responsible for my suicide attempt."

Anyway... I bought extension courses, but I never really worked on them. I was too much of a procrastinator.

Meanwhile, my aunt had finished her PTS/SP course and her Ethics Specialist course at the Seattle Org, and she was ready to fly down to ASHO for some auditing in June of 2001. However, the day before she was supposed to fly down, the MAA at ASHO called her up and told her not to come down because she was PTS. A few days later, the MAA called up my aunt and told her over the phone, "Your mother is a squirrel, so before you can have auditing, you have to disconnect from any relative connected to your mother or get them to disconnect from her." My aunt got angry and hung up on the MAA.

That was the final straw for me. That evening, I started e-mailing my Mom. We began talking over e-mail, and then I called her up on the phone.

A few days later, my aunt received a goldenrod paper with her PTS Type A declare written on it. My aunt ran to the bathroom and began vomiting when she read it. And my aunt NEVER vomits.

Anyway, to this day, my aunt has not been able to get her Type A declare lifted. But... she is still a Scientologist.

But I've basically been out of Scientology since I reconnected with my mother. And over the years, I've gone on the Internet and read all the "entheta" that I could ever want to read.

All I can say it is.... it is really horrible how the Church can make its followers so dependent upon it, to the point where they feel helpless without it and that they'd disconnect from loved ones.

UPDATED ON 6/27/09

Okay, so earlier this week, an acquaintance from Delphi (ex-Scientologist) e-mailed me and warned me that a former friend of mine was contacting people on Facebook about me:

Hi All,

This is totally random and out of left field . . . I came across some data that ............. (Delphi OR student from the time I was there 95-99) is connected with enemies of Scn. I wanted to let you know as I see that you're friends with him on Facebook. There is an option on Facebook to remove someone as a friend so if you want to do that, it is an option of how to not be connected up with him.

L, ......

Needless to say, this really hurt my feelings. Fortunately, I immediately found out afterward about Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun talking to the press and blowing the whistle on David Miscavige. Finding out this news softened the blow immensely!

My ex-Scientologist acquaintance from Delphi also forwarded me a response to the thread this girl had started.

Wow! Thanks I didn't know this. I will remove him right away.

So, anyway, this girl wasn't friends with me on Facebook, but I sent her an e-mail:

Hey ..........,

I see that you're in Florida and that you're not at CC Int anymore. Are you still in the Sea Org?

A non-Scientologist friend of mine just forwarded me this message written by you.

So... I'm curious... what "data" did you come across?

How come, after being friends with me (sort of) and being in choir, jazz choir and madrigal quintet with me, that you never bothered to ask me about it?

Are you 100% sure that whatever data you have is justification for you to be suggesting to mutual acquaintances to disconnect from me?

She graciously replied:

Hi .......,I came across your posting on a website for ex-Scn which told your whole story with the chirch and Delphi, etc.I have no wish to communicate with you about it which is why I didn't write to you directly.I also came across your asking where I was and if I was still at CCI or not on an ex-Scn website chat room. So that's where I got the data from.I felt that the ppl who are friends with you should know that as data to take into consideration. If you have since handled things and cleaned up the nasty story you told on the Internet than I will gladly let those people know that.

So, I replied:

Okay, well, I'm glad you were at least able to read everything I wrote and hear my side.

I've basically said everything I've wanted to say about my experiences. While I have no desire to continue in Scientology, I have nothing against people that do.

But why should it matter that I share my views and experiences? Why should that be a dealbreaker?

I didn't hear back from her. She blocked me on Facebook.

After this conversation with her, I counted 39 friends in my Delphi list. In the last week, that number has gone down to 35.

You know what hurts is that back in high school, this girl's opinion of me mattered so much. Of the few people that have deleted me, there were a few whose opinions of me really used to matter back in the day. I am sad that they now regard me like a leper to be shunned. But fortunately, they were nobody I am close to in present time.

But I am happy that there are still plenty of people who haven't deleted me, either because they didn't see this girl's message, or they're not Scientologists, or even if they are, they don't care about the stupid disconnection policy and don't think of things as black and white as this girl does.

So, for any Scientologist in that group of 35, I have to give serious credit for not deleting me on Facebook.

I told this girl that I had basically said all I wanted to say about Scientology, but... just as she feels that the people who are friends with me "should know that as data to take into consideration," I feel like the whole world should know what this girl, who I wrote three songs for back in high school, just did to me on Facebook after finding out how I posted my story on ESK.

So, I have "cleaned up this nasty story" by correcting a misspelled word, as well as updated the nasty story.

I want the world to know that this is how people in this organization operate.

Last edited by RLSteve on Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:12 am, edited 5 times in total.

everfree wrote:It's sad that your Aunt is still involved even as they split her from her mom and sister and won't let her have services as a "Type A". Are you still in touch with her?

Yeah, my Aunt is like my mother, she was the one who raised me. I talk with her every day.

But... I can't really blame the Church that my aunt considers her mother an SP... after all, her mother did let her husband rape all her daughters and lied to defend him in his court trial. And when my uncle molested my younger sister, my grandma called my sister a liar. Half of my grandma's kids won't have anything to do with her.

Plups wrote:Man! I hope life after Scientology has been a whole lot better than it was when you were "in".

Thanks for sharing.

Life is a lot better than those last few years I was "in." But in all fairness, the time I was first involved with the Church between ages 14 1/2 through 16 were some of the best times in my life. This was before I went down to ASHO, and Scientology literally went to hell for me after that.

RLSteve- wow that bit about your family history of sexual abuse and then full on love abuse (your grandmothers actions in the aftermath) is intense. I can see why your mother and aunt were so desparate to get help from scientology. Talk about overts and withholds, my god man!

I wonder how many members former and current are turing to scientology because of horrific crimes like that.

Scientology: Super Powers and Complete Control Over Your Emotional Physical and Spiritual Body.

Well, my grandmother had been a Scientologist. She was a class VI auditor and made it up to OT VII before she blew Sea Org in 1982. She worked for the Church for 30 years.

But... she had extremely loose morals. She was very promiscuous and had eleven children all together, all of them (except for the last four) had a different father. The husband she stayed with a long time, also a Scientologist, raped all her daugthers, and she really didn't mind that it was going on, she was more interested in Scientology. Her husband was supposedly a Clear as well.

So, most of my mom's side of the family pretty much wanted to stay away from Scientology after this. They didn't have too high of an opinion of it with my grandmother for an example. I was even skeptical of it when I first went to Delphi. It was only after my aunt learned that my grandmother had been declared a suppressive person that she felt better about the Church.

As for my mom, during the 80's, when I was a little kid, she did hang out with freezone groups and got some auditing from a freezone auditor. She had good experiences it.

WrongPlaceRightTime wrote:It is interesting that you say a psychiatrist recommended Delphi to your parents.

Do you know how your grandmother first became involved with scientology?

The psychiatrist was a lady who specialized in interviewing kids and referring schools in the area where she thought the kids would do well. She recommended Delphi as a possible summer program. I don't think she knew it was a Scientology school or what Scientologists thought of psychiatrists.

My grandmother read DIANETICS in 1952, and that's when she got interested in Scientology. I think she met all of her husbands and lovers subsequently through Scientology.

She used to pay her daughters 25 cents an hour to let her audit them. This was when her husband was molesting them. My aunt told me she was scared to tell her mom what was going on since her stepfather had threatened her with a gun, but she was also hoping that her mom would be able to find out with the E-meter and subsequently do something about it. The sex abuse never came up in session (you'd think a good auditor would be able to find out about this). Unfortunately, my grandmother knew the whole time what was going, and she was indifferent to it. Good sex and Scientology were all that mattered to her.

Finally, when one of the daughters told her father what was going on, the stepfather was arrested and went to trial. My grandmother stood by him, testified on his behalf and called all of her daughters liars. The girls were required to live in a juvenile hall during the trial, and one of the girls was homesick, so the defense lawyer told her she could go home if she signed a confession that she and the other girls were all lying. So the stepfather was found not guilty.

Supposedly, the stepfather had been a preclear and fishing buddy of LRH's, but I don't know if that's really true.

My grandmother finally left her husband at some point in the 70's, but she left my mom and some of the other kids with him. My mom was the last kid to get away from her stepfather, she didn't get away from him until she was 24. Subsequently, she met my Dad and had me.

As for my grandmother, she was on staff at ASHO in the early 80's. At the time, there were David Mayo tapes circulating around. My grandmother was given one of the tapes by a friend of hers. She was sent to Ethics for this. The MAA put her in lower conditions and wanted her to reveal who gave her the tape. My grandmother told me a few years ago, "I did a Doubt condition, I decided that I had come to ASHO to audit PCs, not mop floors." So, she got all her things together and blew staff at ASHO.

I remember back in 1986, my Mom and grandmother took me, my sister and cousin down to Disneyland. While we were down in California, my Mom and grandmother attended some event with David Mayo. Also during the 80's, my Mom got involved with squirrel groups and had squirrel auditing. I used to hang out with squirrel kids.

For while, my grandmother had a pretty decent relationship with all her kids. I guess her daughters were willing to put everything with their stepfather behind them. I saw my grandmother frequently growing up and didn't have a bad relationship with her whatsoever. But when my uncle, the son of the stepfather, molested my younger sister back in 1988, my grandmother stood by him. This really pissed my aunt off. After this event, my family just sort of divided in half. There were those that didn't like my grandmother and my uncle, and there were those that did and thought the other side was being too judgmental.

A few years after my Mom broke up with my father, she moved next door to my grandmother and has been living next door ever since. So, I sort of grew up with a split viewpoint of my grandmother and my mother. My mom was close with my grandmother, but my aunt, who was the one who raised me, would always tell me, "My mom is a creepy person, she likes child molesters, and your mom is an irresponsible, immature person."

So, from a Scientological viewpoint, my grandmother does look like an SP, considering everything she's done in the past. I don't like to call her an SP, though. For the most part, I don't have much to do with her, simply because I don't know her anymore and because I don't want to cause problems for my aunt who is still in Scientology (although, fairly offlines since her Type A declare).

Last edited by RLSteve on Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

[[i]b][quote="WrongPlaceRightTime"] I wonder how many members former and current are turing to scientology because of horrific crimes like that. [/b][/i]

You have actually struck upon a very significant point, the way people are trained to sell (reg) scientology.

Having been around, you know the word Ruin. A ruin is simply something, a condition, feeling or situation that someone believes or can be made to believe is 'ruining their live". This can be a noun (what is your ruin?) or verb (make sure you ruin him before you start the reg cycle).

The top sales people and disseminators are all masters at ruining people. they are trained to be intuitive and observant and coached to violate a persons privacy and personal space. You find things that are charged, based on words, or body language (the person looks uncomfortable discussing it). You then mercilessly prod, hack, cut, mold this ruin into a handle you can use to get and keep this person in scientology and paying for services. Experienced reges (sales people) will sit around and tell stories (boy, I had her so hard in her ruin she was sobbing uncontrollably. The Reges are not malicious with this, they are themselves brainwashed that this is the first step to enlightenment ... personal ruin. A reg being brutal means they were saving the publics life.

I was dedicated and ambitious enough to be a good Reg, but not really ruthless enough to feel good about making someone normally happy, cry about some ruin that wasn't really affecting their lives. I believed Scientology was the answer with every molecule of my heart.

So, what I did, was with a network of "upstats" (successful people with money, such as business owners) I would socialize until someone got into trouble, their life throwing them into a ruin, I would do everything in my power to help them, and then tell them it was Scientology, bridging the gap.

What makes it impossible for me to attack Scientology as a subject or the church as a whole is my knowledge that there are many staff, probably most staff, indoctrinated, or brainwashed into doing things that violate basic human rights and decency because of their programming that they are protecting and disseminating the only workable technology in the world, the only future for humanity.

If you were programmed to believe, no ... programmed to KNOW you had the only workable solution for the future of every man woman and child on this planet, you had the only key that could save the future of humanity (actual rhetoric), what could you be persuaded to do? What would you do to save your family, your children?

Create that of your life that which you would like to see in a changed world. Ghandi

Unless the description on the page above describes your grandmother, then she is not a sociopath. That doesn't mean she is innocent however.

The cult likes to portray the world in terms of SP's and non SP's. That is a false dilemma. People are not either angels or demons. Moral corruption and personal dysfunction are far more complex and your grandmother does not have to be a sociopath to lie against her children to protect her rapist of a husband. In fact, her behavior is not even exceptional. I can't tell you how many times I've read stories about children being betrayed by family members who side with their abuser. It just goes to show how dysfunctional some families are.

RLSteve wrote:I am bumping this up because I just added an update to my story.

The seed of nonconformity was probably planted in some before that message went out. This may turn out to be a positive thing for you and many of your ex classmates, so don't let it get you down. Your response to the writer was honest and written with integrity. That's the right approach and one worth maintaining.
Best wishes,
Mary

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:11 (NIV):